


ilysb

by guanlin



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: ALSO INJURED WINWIN IM SORRY, ANYWAY HOLLA AFTER LEGIT FOUR MONTHS IM HERE, BOI IM BACK, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Non AU, also dojae r together but it doesnt say anything lmao, lets go, okay also, side!taeten, side!winkun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 11:00:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10436193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guanlin/pseuds/guanlin
Summary: donghyuck drips sunlight. mark is infatuated.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katsuk1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katsuk1/gifts).



> hi everyone im back with a lit one ok so basically like five months ago i messaged @smolmarkhyuck on tumblr who is now @leeminhyung asking if i could steal some of the plot from her markhyuck au which is the littest thing and if i could FREAKING FIND OUT HOW TO LINK STUFF ON HERE I WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY AND TEACH ME but yeah she was an absoloute angel and let me so HERE IT IS AFTER LIKE TEN YEARS PLS FORGIVE ME 
> 
> also, title is from 'ilysb' by lany and it means 'i love you so bad' ok lets go enjoy

It’s Winwin that slips up first. It’s three in the morning and the familiar starting notes of their new single ‘Firetruck’ come blaring through the speakers for the hundredth time this night. Mark drags his body from the blissful cool of the floor and pulls his tired limbs into his staring position and then he’s moving and his hand is curled into a fist to resemble a microphone and his mouth is moving and then it’s not. His own voice through the boom of the  
bass sounds too high and it’s grating on his last nerves and he’s wonderinghow many times will they have to do this before it’s finally deemed perfect. These last few run throughs, Winwin’s arms have been shaking when he flips and even though every single one of them stare at him, worried, not one of them points it out or suggest they go home. SM has drilled into them that if they shake, they’re weak. Get stronger. Winwin probably knows that a lot better than anyone.

Instead of getting stronger, however, Winwin’s wrist twists violently underneath him like it finally got tired of holding him up. It’s frightening to Mark, how your bones won’t treat you right if you don’t treat them right and it seems to frighten Winwin too because he lands on his knees, back hunched over and defeated, doesn’t even try to get up. Yuta runs to switch off the music whilst the rest of them gather around their friend. Taeyong places a hand on his shoulder and when Winwin lifts his head up, there are tears of pain threatening to fall from his almond eyes. Mark doesn’t want to ask if it’s broken because he’s not sure what he would do if it was, what they would do. They have shows to star in and performances to do and how are they going to do that if one of their members is in a cast?

“Is it broken?” Jaehyun asks for him, bottom lip tucked between his teeth. Donghyuck naturally gravitates towards Mark and ends up peeking a head over his hyung’s shoulder so he can get a proper view. It’s as natural as breathing when Donghyuck’s warm fingers slide themselves between Mark’s  
own and Mark squeezes him tight, attempting to reassure him, even when his own heart is beating it’s way out of his chest.  
“I…I don’t know,” Winwin replies, voice shaky.  
“Well, can you move it?”  
As soon as Winwin removes his fingers from his wrist, it flops forward uselessly and he groans in pain, back hunching even more as if he’s trying to curl in on himself. Mark turns to meet Donghyuck’s dark eyes and the same feeling of anxiety Mark has in his stomach is reflected in them.  
“What should we do?” Yuta asks, naturally turning to Taeyong. In this moment, Mark feels for him. Being the leader of them all in times like this must be a terrible burden. What if Taeyong doesn’t know what to do either?  
For a second, it looks like he doesn’t but soon clarity reaches his eyes and  
he crouches down next to Winwin again.  
“Buddy, I think we’re gonna have to take you to the hospital. Your wrists broken. Do you wanna get anything before we go? Your phone, maybe?”  
Winwin’s eyes widen and instead of answering Taeyong’s question, he voices one of his own, the lisp of his accent still showing through his Korean.  
“What are we going to do?” he asks, panic clear in his voice, “I can’t do anything in a cast! Are you sure it’s broken?”  
“He begins to let go of his wrist and moves to stand up but Taeil rushes forward and wraps his own fingers around Winwin’s limp wrist and settles his other hand against his back.  
“Sicheng, you’re going to be okay but your wrist is broken and we need to get it in a cast for you to be better, okay? We’ll sort something out for you, let’s just worry about getting you better.”  
Winwin sniffs and nods a little, allowing Taeil to bring him to his feet. Donghyuck is still holding Mark’s hand.  
“Do you think one of you can wake Kun?” Winwin asks suddenly and Taeyong blinks at him for a second then turns to blink at the others.  
“Are you sure?” he asks. Sleep is a rare commodity in SM and you have to grab onto it with both hands. Winwin knows that as well as the rest of them do. Mark ponders whether Winwin is being selfish or not but thinks about how if Donghyuck were to have hurt himself whilst Mark was there and no one woke him up, there would be hell to pay.  
“I’m sure. I really need him to come with me,” Winwin murmurs, blushing when he catches himself saying something he’ll get teased for. Taeyong looks perplexed for a second before he nods firmly, jumping into his get- stuff-done mode.  
“Okay, Jaehyun, go to the first aid kit and get the sling. Yuta, go to the dorms and get Kun. If Winwin wants him, we’ll get him. Taeil, take the boys back to  
the dorms, get them to bed.”  
Both Mark and Donghyuck stutter in protest and Donghyuck almost lets go of Mark’s hand as he jolts forward but catches himself last second.  
“But hyung,” Mark reasons, “just because we’re a few years younger than you doesn’t mean you can just send us to bed. We need to come with you!”  
Taeyong looks down pointedly at their conjoined hands and Mark lets go quickly. Donghyuck glances at him but obviously chooses not to comment.  
“Yeah!” Donghyuck chimes in, “Winwin-hyung’s hurt and we’re as much part of this team as you guys all are!”  
Taeyong looks at them for a second and runs a hand through his already dishevelled hair then shrugs. It’s obvious he’s tired and Mark feels the faintest trace of guilt tug at his stomach but when Donghyuck turns to him and Mark sees the sheer determination in his eyes it’s whisked away.  
“Fine, then. If you want to be tired tomorrow. Go and grab the car keys, I’m gonna call Ten, see if he’s awake."  
“Why would you need Ten-hyung?” Mark asks, perplexed but Taeyong is already gone, phone pressed to his ear, murmuring indistinctly into the speakers.

As soon as they get out of the studio and into the little corridor, Mark throws his arms around Donghyuck’s waist in a desperate sort of embrace and squeezes so tight it was almost as if he was trying to meld their bodies together, keep Donghyuck with him at all times. Heck stays unresponsive for half a second before he realise that Mark, his best friend, is hugging him tighter than he ever has so he wraps his arms around Mark’s neck just as tightly even though he doesn’t really get what’s going on. When Mark pulls away, a tear trickles down his pale cheek and Hyuck’s stomach drops at the image of Mark crying and upset. If he had to choose his own eight circles of  
hell, the other boy crying would be one of them. He places a soft hand on the older’s arm and sits him down in the thin little corridor of SM’s practicerooms.  
“Hyung, what’s wrong? Winwin’s going to be okay, it’s only a broken wrist. You know that, right?”  
Mark takes in a shaky breath and places a hand over his eyes.  
“I know that but did you see how easily it snapped? That could happen to any of us! It could happen to you, Hyuck! Then what would I do?”  
Mark is beginning to look desperate and he turns to Donghyuck with this devastated look on his face and Hyuck feels so blessed to even know Mark because he’s so selfless and cares so much about him and he’s so lucky. Donghyuck smiles at him, soft, caring, and reaches out to wipe at his tears with the soft pad of his thumb.  
“Don’t worry, hyung, I’m right here. I’m fine, see?”  
Mark nods and tips his head back, presumably to stop the tears. He knows that he’s being silly, knows that he just needs to man up and get on with it but even the thought of Donghyuck ever getting hurt is enough to make his  
knees weak.  
“Please don’t ever get hurt,” he says quietly but leaves the  _I never want to lose you_ unsaid because Mark isn’t really sure if that’s allowed to be said  
between best friends. The part of Donghyuck’s heart that belongs to his best friend silently gets larger.  
“You’re being dumb, hyung,” Hyuck tells him almost ruefully, large eyes looking up at him, “You shouldn’t waste your tears on me- especially not when there’s nothing even wrong with me.”  
Instead of replying, Mark just pulls him into a hug again, resting his head on the sharp point of Donghyuck’s shoulder and breathing in his familiar scent that’s similar to Mark’s own but with something so drastically Donghyuck that Mark can’t even explain it. Maybe later, he’ll admit to himself that he smells a lot like home. Donghyuck hugs him back, albeit a little awkwardly due to the fact that he’s still on his feet but it’s the thought that counts, Mark  
supposes.  
“Do you think…maybe, we should go and get the keys now?” Donghyuck asks and Mark releases him with a teary laugh and nods his head. Donghyuck stands up with an exaggerated little groan and when he lends  out a hand to drag Mark up, neither of them let go.

*

  
They retrieve the keys to the van and meet the rest of their lot at the front of their apartment building. Winwin’s arm is in a fabric sling across his shoulder and he leans against a tired looking Kun, head tucked under the other man’s chin. Mark thinks they look nice, comfortable and finds his mind conjuring up an image of he and Donghyuck snuggled up together like that. Where did that come from? Taeil, Doyoung, Yuta and Jaehyun all seemed to have gone back to the dorms and Mark wonders briefly if they should have gone too. It’s true, he and Donghyuck will be tired tomorrow and he’s considering giving in and dragging him back but Winwin smiles gratefully at him and drags Kun over so they can greet each other. Even though they’re in the same band, Winwin is the only one Kun’s really close with, apart from Hansol and Johnny, so they say hello rather formally and are making vague small talk with each other when Taeyong and Ten appear, Taeyong basically dragging a half asleep Ten by the collar of his too big sleep shirt.  
“We don’t need to take the whole band, hyung,” Winwin tells Taeyong softly and both Taeyong and Ten chuckle.  
“Yeah well, teamwork makes the dreamwork, I suppose,” he replies, catching the van keys when Mark throws them at him. He tells them all to get in, voice quiet but still holding that authoritative tint to it that reveals years of  built up confidence and compliments. Teamwork really does make the dream work.

The van is quiet on the way to the hospital. Taeyong and Ten sit in the front, Ten constantly messing with the dials on the radio as he and Taeyong whisper quietly, intimately. Mark wonders why he’s only just realised how close some of his hyungs act now. Does he look like that with anyone? Winwin and Kun sit in the middle, Winwin’s almond eyes sliding closed with his head pillowed against Kun’s shoulder. Donghyuck and Mark sit in the back, close enough so that their thighs and shoulders are touching, headphones split in between them playing something old and english from Mark’s phone that makes him nostalgic for Canada. It’s weird how something as seemingly insignificant as a song can transport you back to a single moment years ago, even when you’re halfway across the world in a van with a completely new set of family. The orange lights of Seoul play out across Donghyuck’s skin, casting shadows against the sharp tendons of his neck. Mark finds himself wondering when his best friend suddenly started growing up, the baby fat melting away from his face, revealing sharp bone structure and an even sharper jawline.  
“You okay?” Donghyuck asks him and the apples of Mark’s cheeks turn a light shade of pink. He nods, quickly turning away to look out of his own window. He’s tired, of course he is but there’s still something unsettling about having to take one of his own bandmates to the hospital and his hands begin to fidget when he thinks about what they’re going to do with Winwin, if he’ll be ready enough to debut with them. An injury this close to the beginning of his career could ruin everything before it’s even began and the nerves rise in Mark’s throat. Losing Winwin now after they’ve all got so close would be such a blow to the team and Winwin would have left china and travelled to a brand new country for nothing. Suddenly, slender fingers settle over his own.  
“You’re thinking too much,” Donghyuck tells him, looking Mark straight in the eye as he laces their fingers, “We’re all gonna be fine.” Mark closes his eyes and breathes in, focuses on the warmth of fingers between him, half of his hearing filled with music and the other half the quiet murmuring of Taeyong and Ten and the hum of the van. Slowly, he relaxes.  
“Sorry,” Mark says, “I’m just… worried.”  
Donghyuck squeezes his hand once before letting go and Mark’s muddled mind suddenly misses the warmth.  
“I know,” Hyuck hums, turning to look out of his window again as they pull into the hospital car park.

It must have looked kind of strange, five teenage boys rocking up at a hospital at four in the morning but then again, maybe it isn’t. Thinking about it, it’s probably super normal. The wait isn’t long, maybe twenty minutes, and the waiting room is strangely empty compared to when it’s usually bustling during the day time, when normal people are awake. A hospital at night has a super weird feeling about it. The air is kind of stagnant and still, the air strangely clinical and the lights strangely bright. It’s one of those places that time never really seems to touch, like a petrol station on a hot summer night or the practice room with the lights off. It’s just one of those weird things. Prying Kun off of Winwin when he had to go to get an x-ray was extremely difficult but they had eventually done it, both Winwin and Taeyong assuring Kun that he’s going to be okay and be back in about ten minutes. Kun is obviously frazzled, only running on a couple of more hours of sleep than the rest of them and not as used to it. He tips his head back against the hard blue plastic of the waiting room chairs, ruffled brown hair getting smushed against the wall. Mark and Donghyuck are both aimlessly twiddling their thumbs.  
“Regretting coming along now?” Ten asks, still smiling his signature smile despite the situation. Both of the youngers shrug. It was probably sort of stupid, them coming along seeing as them being there was pointless but Winwin had obviously been happy that they had wanted to come with him, so neither of them really regretted it. Kun pulled his head forwards again, smiling softly. He was kind of detached from the rest of them. A seat separating him from Ten and Taeyong, a couple of seats away from being opposite to Mark and Donghyuck.  
“Sicheng-ie really appreciates you guys coming,” he tells them, voice lilting at the bottom from fatigue and something vaguely emotional.  
All four of them nod, echoing out something along the lines of ‘of course’ or ‘our pleasure’. Kun smiles again, this time thankfully and Mark can already feel that Donghyuck is going to ask Kun something vaguely personal and possibly offensive.  
“Are you and Winwin-hyung dating, Kun-hyung?” he asks and Mark whips his head around to face Donghyuck so fast that he almost cricks his neck. To his surprise, however, no one else seems that phased by the question, the late night seeming to have snapped them out of their idol modes and not alienating the fact that boys are allowed to like boys. Kun shrugs and he’s so casual Mark’s heart squeezes. It must be nice, to be able to have the safety to shrug when someone asks if you like a boy, instead of laughing awkwardly and telling them “no, of course not,” with a forced smile.  
“I don’t think we’ve figured that out yet,” he tells Donghyuck, face nothing but kind.  
“That’s cute,” Donghyuck replies and Kun murmurs a quick thank you before the comfortable silence returns between them. It was such a strange change of pace, going from living in a world where the only relationship you can ever even think of is between a boy and a girl to his best friend asking one of their band mates whether he’s dating another one of their bandmates. Is Mark the only one who hasn’t thought about this before?

Winwin emerges sheepishly from the doctor’s room with a bright red cast going halfway up his arm. Kun shoots up immediately, going over to pull Winwin into a tight hug. It’s a little bit refreshing. Taeyong looks tense, the connotations of Winwin’s broken wrist catching up with him. They all knew it was broken but seeing Winwin’s bony arm wrapped up in a cast solidified the fact that unless they pushed their debut back six weeks, there was no way Winwin was gonna make it with them.  
“Are you okay?” Ten asks Winwin and he nods, eyes filled with a sort of anguish Mark can’t explain. Everyone seems to have realised what’s going on. Donghyuck stands up first, brushing imaginary crumbs from his trousers before reaching a casual hand out to help Mark up. The other boy doesn’t hesitate to take it, admiring the contrasts between Mark’s pale skin and Donghyuck’s tanned under the saturated lights before letting go. Ten and Taeyong are whispering again, Ten’s hand pressed to the small of Ten’s back.  
“Winwin-hyung,” Mark says and as soon as Winwin turns to him, he wraps his frail looking body into a big hug, burying his nose in the fabric of Winwin’s hoodie. Mark’s hyung seemed kind of surprised at the notion, Mark never really being known as a touchy person but hugs him back all the same. Eventually, Haechan joins the hug, attaching himself to Mark’s back and Then Taeyong and then Ten and then finally Kun and they’re just six boys hugging a hospital that time doesn’t effect. Things are simple.

Donghyuck falls asleep in the car and demands that Mark carries him back into the dorm and because Mark is the best best friend in the whole entire world, he hoists Donghyuck onto his back and begins the walk back up to the dorms, all of them bidding goodbye to Kun and Winwin, who are going back to Kun’s room for the night (because it’s not like Winwin sneaks out anyway). Haechan isn’t really that heavy, but the fact that he has to carry him up four flights of stairs and it’s nearing six in the morning with no sleep have him heaving when he gets into their shared bedroom. Donghyuck has fallen asleep again by the time Mark gets up and he sets him down gently onto the bottom bunk, deciding he’ll have to sleep on the top tonight. Donghyuck’s eyelashes cast shadows against his cheeks as he sleeps but when Mark goes to take his hands from under his legs, the other boy wraps a hand around his wrist without even opening his eyes.  
“Hyuck-ah,” Mark whispers, “Let go, I need to go to bed.”  
Donghyuck groans and then rolls over, still with his iron-like grip on Mark’s wrist.  
“Stay,” he mumbles and Mark blames the fatigue on the fact that butterflies erupt in his stomach at the single word. Donghyuck probably won’t even remember this tomorrow, Mark says to himself but even then, he finds himself shoving Donghyuck over gently and pulling the blankets from under him so Mark can get in comfortably as well. They’ve done this before, of course they have, both having collapsed from fatigue on the same bed and woke up with their legs tangled together but never has Donghyuck asked Mark to stay with him. Just before he drifts off to sleep, Donghyuck slips his hand into Mark’s for the fourth time tonight and Mark doesn’t have the energy to even think about doing anything other than squeezing back.

*

The next day is free of schedules, thankfully because Mark doesn’t know what he would have done if they would have had to get up at the literal ass crack of dawn. The older boy wakes up first, one leg shoved between both of Donghyuck’s and Donghyuck’s hand slung protectively across his face. The sunlight streaming in from the window casts shadows over his best friend’s face and he can’t even blame it on fatigue, now, for staring because he’s fully rested and still can’t get over the way light plays with the beautiful hues of Donghyuck’s tan skin. The situation, admittedly, is quite strange. It’s sort of domestic for two best friends in a boy band, maybe even suggestive of something past friendship if anyone else were to walk in and something in Mark’s stomach is set alight at the thought of dating rumours, anything going past a fangirl/boy’s dream would be absolutely damaging to his reputation and anxiety runs its path up his throat because he’s worked so hard to get where he is and he’d literally scream if anything got in the way of it. But, and it’s a big but, he and Donghyuck had been thrown into this together, had both gone through the same things and another part of Mark hates that he even thought he would put his career before his best friend. Despite the sharp edge of fear slicing into the soft flesh of his stomach like a stitch in his side, Mark things that nothing in the whole world could make him want to untangle himself from Donghyuck in this very moment.

“You’re staring,” Donghyuck says, without even opening his eyes, “Stop it.”  
Mark blinks once before turning away, feeling his cheeks flood with pink and suddenly he’s glad that Donghyuck hasn’t opened his eyes.  
He coughs and shifts awkwardly, straightening out his leg and wondering why the brunette hasn’t moved his hand from his waist yet. “Sorry.”  
“S’fine,” the other boy replies sleepily, still with his eyes closed. Is Haechan even conscious enough to realise that he’s got Mark in a vaguely compromising position? Has he noticed? Mark’s questions are answered a second after, when Donghyuck splays his hand out fully against the pale skin of Mark’s hip and quite literally drags him closer. Mark makes a strange squeaking noise high in his throat and he probably sounds like a dying cat, his cheeks growing redder by the second.  
“Calm down,” Donghyuck murmurs, “I’m cold, okay? Stop freaking out.”  
It’s a miracle that Donghyuck’s cold, Mark thinks, because every part of him is burning hot with embarrassment and something else, the burn even worse under the soft pads of Donghyuck’s fingers against his bare skin where Mark’s shirt had ridden up in the night. Abort mission.  
“Haechan-ah,” Mark says, tracing the lines on the ceiling of the dorm with his eyes to avoid looking at the boy next to him, “I need to go to the bathroom.”  
Donghyuck groans and shifts over, still keeping his iron grip on Mark.  
“Don’t leave,” he whines, dragging out the ‘e’ but he’s smiling and Mark finally feels like they’ve shaken the weird atmosphere, “You’re my human hot water bottle!”  
“Shut up,” Mark tells him jokingly, finally finding the courage to shove at Donghyuck’s hand, “I’m going to the bathroom and then we’re both going to the practice rooms, okay? Let’s make use of the free time.”  
Donghyuck has his face shoved back in the pillow but Mark can tell he agrees, albeit reluctantly.

*

They’re in the practice room, Mark’s fingers playing out a familiar tune on the guitar whilst Donghyuck sits next to him, jotting something down in a notebook, humming distractedly.  
“D’you wanna sing with me?” Mark asks him, fingers stilling against the strings. Donghyuck stops writing and looks up as if it was obvious that was what they were doing.  
“Isn’t that what we’re doing here?”  
Usually, Mark would probably just laugh, or shove at his shoulder because that’s kind of a blunt way to talk to a hyung but there’s something about the way his best friend looks now, hair un-styled and against his smooth forehead that makes Mark stop in his tracks and look away nervously.  
“Y-yeah,” he murmurs, looking down at his hands instead of Donghyuck and he hates himself because why did he do that? He can literally sense Donghyuck’s confusion but he seems to know not to push, seems to know that Mark doesn’t really know what happened either.  
“Do you remember when we were, like, nine and I taught you all the words to that one song from high school musical?” he asks suddenly and Haechan breathes a laugh through his nose.  
“Of course I do. How could I not? I mean, you made me run over it with you like twenty times.” Mark laughs, feeling some of the tightness in his chest loosen up.  
“Sing it for me?” he asks softly because he feels like if he said it normally, maybe Donghyuck wouldn’t look at him like that, or maybe the other boy would realise that the shoulder of his shirt had slipped down, exposing the splatter of moles against his sternum and the sharp point of his collar bone. So that’s how he and Mark end up singing to ‘the start of something new’ from high school musical and at one point, Hyuck laughs so much he has to stop singing because, why did they even learn this in the first place?

When they’re done and Donghyuck has stopped laughing so much, Mark has to force himself to stop looking at him. God, this isn’t normal at all.  
“Love yourself?” Mark asks and the younger crinkles his nose at him, shaking his head all cutely.  
“You play,” he says, “I like watching you.”  
The butterflies that Mark has had in his stomach since they came in here an hour ago go crazy.  
“Well, d’you wanna learn?” Mark asks him, fingers poised to begin, “I can teach you.”  
“Nah, I get too distracted.” Donghyuck is looking at the notebook again, fingers fiddling with the pen in his hands and Mark knows he’s taking a risk when he asks “by what” because he doesn’t know if he even wants the answer. The other’s hands still and he looks up like he wasn’t expecting the question. Mark watches him swallow thickly, once.  
“I don’t know,” he says, “You, maybe.”  
Mark doesn’t know if he’s glad he asked and he doesn’t even know how to react and they’re both looking at each other and wow, this is really weird. Mark clears his throat and they both seem to snap out of it, Donghyuck blushing a dark red that Mark can’t help but to find cute.

He starts playing, if only to distract himself. It’s just a tune, nothing major but Mark is concentrated, looking down at the guitar instead of Donghyuck, for once, and the way Mark’s eyebrows furrow at the middle and the way he sucks his bottom lip between his teeth has Donghyuck’s lungs filling with something.  
“My fingers hurt,” Mark says, laughing and it takes a second for Donghyuck to realise he’s stopped playing. He doesn’t even think about doing it when he reaches over, picks up Mark’s hand and presses a kiss to the pads of his fingers. He realises maybe that was a bad move, considering they’ve been kind of awkward the past few days but Mark’s eyes soften, like, a lot and when he takes his hand away, smiling painfully softly, his hands are shaking.  
“Your hands are shaking, hyung!” Donghyuck practically shouts, deciding one of them has to be normal and Mark seems relieved as he laughs and shakes his head, cheeks pink as he mumbles for Donghyuck to shut up. He doesn’t deny it.  
“Why don’t you sing instead, hyung?” Haechan asks him with a shit-eating grin on his face.  
“Because I can’t sing, Hyuckie.” “Sure you can. Go for it.”  
And Mark does, because he knows that Donghyuck would never judge him and he feels a little bit invincible with his best friend next to him. Mark has a nice voice, it’s a little rough round the edges and obviously not as polished as the vocals but it’s just naturally smooth. That’s how they spend their day.

 

It’s a known fact that Mark writes the best when he’s on the roof of SM’s practice building and today, there is no exception. The sun’s setting against the Seoul skyline and the air is sort of electric. Maybe they’ll be a storm later. Mark’s frustrated and is this close to tearing his hair out. There’s one line that’s so good he just needs to have it in but it won’t work with the pace or the rhymes of the rap and he can’t fit it in and he’s so frustrated he wants to scream. He’s just about ready to go inside and find the others when Donghyuck suddenly throws the door of the roof open, the cool air conditioned atmosphere of inside the SM building wafting out before Haechan shuts the door and it’s humidly hot once again. He saunters up to Mark and instead of dropping himself down into the fold up chair next to Mark, he plops himself right onto Mark’s lap, giving him only a couple of seconds to move his writing.  
“Hello?” Mark says questioningly, hands drifting awkwardly, worried to set them down on Donghyuck.  
“Hello,” the other greets him back casually, shifting in Mark’s lap so his legs dangle over the arm of the chair and Mark can rest his notebook comfortably against his soft stomach.  
“I could hear your frustration from the dorms, hyung,” he drawls, head hanging back uselessly, exposing the tan column of his neck. It’s the kind of light where it’s soft, almost orange. Half of the sun is below the horizon and basically the only patch of sun is on Donghyuck and _god_ , he’s so so so so beautiful that Mark feels like crying and his chests about to burst and _oh_. He’s pretty sure he’s in love with him. Oh. That kind of makes sense.  
“Yeah,” Mark breaths, “But it’s alright now you’re here.”  
Donghyuck picks his head up and looks at him, almost cautious.  
“That was…bold of you to say.”  
“Yeah, maybe,” Mark shrugs and his new realisation brings him confidence when he reaches out and threads his fingers through the waviness of Donghyuck’s hair, “It’s true though.”  
Donghyuck watches him for a second but a second is enough.  
“So you finally realised,” he says, smile so bright and beautiful that Mark has no idea how he could have ever been ashamed for loving him. The last bit of sunlight lights up Donghyuck’s eyes until it finally disappears and Mark pulls him forward and presses a kiss to his forehead. He can hear Donghyuck’s breath hitch at the contact.  
“Nah,” he says, “I always knew.”

**Author's Note:**

> so we're done. do winkun finally become official? are taeten an item? will mark ever stop admiring haechan? we'll never know  
> i'm probably gonna write another couple bonus chapters because there was some stuff in the au that i stole this from that i just couldn't work in so look out for that. thank u guys for reading!!


End file.
